Northstar Present at Qual 360 in Berlin and IIeX Europe 2018 in Amsterdam

19 January 2018

Northstar UK’s Daniel Tralman and Rhiannon Price will be presenting ‘The Apprentice: The Real Winner in the Boardroom’ at Qual 360 in Berlin and IIeX Europe 2018 in Amsterdam. At IIeX, they are speaking as part of the AQR session having been shortlisted for the prestigious Prosper Riley Smith Award for Qualitative Excellence. If you are attending, be sure to come and listen to what it is all about at Qual 360 on 7th February 2018 at 2.30pm and at IIeX on Tuesday 20th February at 1.40pm (Track 3)!

The synopsis of the presentation is as follows:

“You’re Hired!”. Anyone who has ever watched a series of The Apprentice knows that this is the ultimate win for the candidates. It is the hard-earned reward for one of 12 hopefuls who have battled it out for 10 weeks to be Lord Sugar’s (or, Donald Trump’s) Apprentice.

But look a little closer and you realise this isn’t just a highly entertaining TV show, it is the epitome in gamification and projective techniques and also an insightful means of character exploration. Given this, Northstar and Jaguar Land Rover saw its potential to be used as the basis for a brand new and innovative qualitative research methodology and together completely re-imagined how to execute and disseminate target customer exploration. The success of this approach is demonstrated by the increased reach and engagement of our three Apprentice episodes, to date, they have received 2,500 views which is around three times more than previous target customer documentaries.

This presentation explores why tapping into pop culture is such a powerful methodological innovation and how there is great opportunity and impact in using the method for gathering insight as the medium for sharing it. It also outlines the process, challenges and learnings for any researcher interested in adopting this new methodology.